Arithmetic

Basic Math & Pre-Algebra For Dummies (For Dummies (Math & Science))

Tips for simplifying tricky operations

Get the skills you need to solve problems and equations and be ready for algebra class

Whether you're a student preparing to take algebra or a parent who wants to brush up on basic math, this fun, friendly guide has the tools you need to get in gear. From positive, negative, and whole numbers to fractions, decimals, and percents, you'll build necessary skills to tackle more advanced topics, such as imaginary numbers, variables, and algebraic equations.


* Understand fractions, decimals, and percents
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Unravel algebra word problems
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Grasp prime numbers, factors, and multiples
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Work with graphs and measures
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Solve single and multiple variable equations

Basic Math & Pre-Algebra Workbook For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))

When you have the right math teacher, learning math can be painless and even fun! Let Basic Math and Pre-Algebra Workbook For Dummies teach you how to overcome your fear of math and approach the subject correctly and directly. A lot of the topics that probably inspired fear before will seem simple when you realize that you can solve math problems, from basic addition to algebraic equations. Lots of students feel they got lost somewhere between learning to count to ten and their first day in an algebra class, but help is here!

Begin with basic topics like interpreting patterns, navigating the number line, rounding numbers, and estimating answers. You will learn and review the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Do remainders make you nervous? You’ll find an easy and painless way to understand long division. Discover how to apply the commutative, associative, and distributive properties, and finally understand basic geometry and algebra. Find out how to:

• Properly use negative numbers, units, inequalities, exponents, square roots, and absolute value
• Round numbers and estimate answers
• Solve problems with fractions, decimals, and percentages
• Navigate basic geometry
• Complete algebraic expressions and equations
• Understand statistics and sets
• Uncover the mystery of FOILing
• Answer sample questions and check your answers

Complete with lists of ten alternative numeral and number systems, ten curious types of numbers, and ten geometric solids to cut and fold, Basic Math and Pre-Algebra Workbook For Dummies will demystify math and help you start solving problems in no time!

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

The seemingly impossible Zen task--writing a book about nothing--has a loophole: people have been chatting, learning, and even fighting about nothing for millennia. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by noted science writer Charles Seife, starts with the story of a modern battleship stopped dead in the water by a loose zero, then rewinds back to several hundred years BCE. Some empty-headed genius improved the traditional Eastern counting methods immeasurably by adding zero as a placeholder, which allowed the genesis of our still-used decimal system. It's all been uphill from there, but Seife is enthusiastic about his subject; his synthesis of math, history, and anthropology seduces the reader into a new fascination with the most troubling number.

Why did the Church reject the use of zero? How did mystics of all stripes get bent out of shape over it? Is it true that science as we know it depends on this mysterious round digit? Zero opens up these questions and lets us explore the answers and their ramifications for our oh-so-modern lives. Seife has fun with his format, too, starting with chapter 0 and finishing with an appendix titled "Make Your Own Wormhole Time Machine." (Warning: don't get your hopes up too much.) There are enough graphs and equations to scare off serious numerophobes, but the real story is in the interactions between artists, scientists, mathematicians, religious and political leaders, and the rest of us--it seems we really do have nothing in common. --Rob Lightner

A concise and appealing look at the strangest number in the universe and its continuing role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought

The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now, as Y2K fever rages, it threatens a technological apocalypse. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.

In Zero science journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers--from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists--who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time, the quest for a theory of everything.

Readers of Fermat's Enigma, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Seeing and Believing, and Longitudewill find the revealingly illustrated Zero freshly informative, easy to understand, and--infinitely--fascinating.

Primary Grade Challenge Math

Primary Grade Challenge Math offers material that goes beyond calculation skills for those children who enter the primary grades already knowing basic concepts. This curriculum allows parents and teachers to instill a deeper level of mathematical understanding and thinking skills in young children while nurturing a love of mathematics. (Grades 1st - 4th)

Each chapterÂ’s questions are broken down into four levels:
Level 1 (easy)
Level 2 (somewhat challenging)
Level 3 (challenging)
Einstein (very challenging)

Includes chapters on: Sequences, Problem-solving, Money, Percents, Algebraic Thinking, Negative Numbers, Logic, Ratios, Probability, Measurements, Fractions, Division.

Short-Cut Math

Apple Fractions

Author Jerry Pallotta and illustrator Rob Bolster use a variety of different apples to teach kids all about fractions in this innovative and enjoyable book. Playful elves demonstrate how to divide apples into halves, thirds, fourths, and more. Young readers will also learn about varieties of apples, including Golden and Red Delicious, Granny Smiths, Cortlands, and even Asian Pears.

I Spy Little Numbers (I Spy)

"I spy a great big yellow two,/ a pair of scissors,/ and a button that's blue." Preschoolers adore perusing A Drop of Water creator Walter Wick's crisp, colorful photographs to find objects, and in I Spy Little Numbers, they'll develop number identification and counting skills while they're at it. On the number five spread, children will find not only the three main objects (an airplane with five windows, a soccer ball made up of pentagons, and a five-wheeled choo-choo train), but five-pointed sea stars, a nickel, a pea pod with five peas, and more. Other sturdy board books in the interactive I Spy Little Book series include I Spy Little Book, I Spy Little Wheels, and I Spy Little Animals. (Baby to preschool)

In an engaging, age-appropriate learning tool, this fourth book in the "I Spy Little Book" series includes simple rhymes and bright picture clues that introduce toddlers to the concept of numbers. Full-color board book.

Painless Math Word Problems (Barron's Painless Series)

Titles in Barron's Painless Series are textbook supplements designed especially for classroom use by middle school and high school students. The approach of each title is an appeal to students who think that the subject is boring, or too difficult, or both. The authors, all experienced educators, take a light approach, showing kids what is most interesting about each subject, and how seemingly difficult problems can be transformed into fun quizzes, brain-ticklers, and challenging puzzles with rational solutions. In this volume, students learn to see patterns in math word problems, then compute with decimals, fractions, compare rates, and solve proportions. Then using everyday, real-world examples, they explore statistics and probabilities, and learn how math can actually predict future outcomes and events. Other areas of practical math are examined, with a final chapter that searches out problems and activities that can be found on the World Wide Web.

Math Fables

The Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar Fractions Book

A Hershey's bar is made up of 12 little rectangles, making it the perfect edible tool for teaching fractions!